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City's street sweeper is broke; official wants new one

The city’s street sweeper remains broken and awaiting parts, but Safety Service Director Mike Green said he would to buy a new one. One city councilman says he supports the purchase of a new sweeper, but only if a plan is presented to council.(Photo: Matthew Kent/Gazette)Buy Photo

CHILLICOTHE – It remains unclear whether street sweeping will occur this year in the city of Chillicothe after officials acknowledged last week that their piece of equipment is broken, but one city leader says he supports buying a new one as long as a plan is presented to city council.

The current street sweeper is about 15 to 20 years old and was only used half of last year for street sweeping and leaf pickup in the fall. The machine is now sitting broken and unused in the city's service garage, said Mike Green, safety service director for the city.

"It's time to get a new one," Green said. "We haven't discussed how we will proceed."

A new street sweeper wasn't included in this year's budget, and Green said a new one could cost at least $220,000. Still, he said action needs to be taken regardless.

"We have to — we have no choice," Green said. "We've just been babying it trying to keep it on the road."

Green said in the meantime, officials are waiting for new parts to arrive and said he'd like to approach city council so money can be appropriated for a new street sweeper.

"When we get those in, we'll try to get it back out again," he said. "We would like to be in a more proactive position ... but we're not able to be proactive as we like."

City Councilman Dave Tatman said he thinks the city needs a new street sweeper, but stressed there needs to be a plan in place involving how residential streets will be cleaned. For example, at one time, he said the city scheduled street sweeping on some streets, requiring cars to be moved so the side of the streets could be cleared.

Tatman said the way things have recently been done have resulted in the street sweeper going down the middle of the street, which he said doesn't do any good. Still, he said he needs to see a plan before he decides to vote in favor of budgeting taxpayer money for a new street sweeper.

"They need to have a program to use it correctly," he said. "As long as they get a program set in in motion, yeah, I'll vote for it."